The topic of women’s resilience in crises has begun to gain momentum relatively recently. The term “glass cliff” has appeared, meaning when a woman is appointed the head of a crisis company in a difficult period to save the business. Firstly, women with great zeal are ready to take on the problems of a crisis of a company or university. They consider this opportunity a chance to prove themselves, a severe career challenge, on which further ascent depends. Secondly, typical female soft skills can help a company overcome hard times and take it to a new level: interest and empathy help retain valuable employees. These facts are also valid for academic leaders, where there are other motives and interests, but there is a common goal of maintaining the positive dynamics of the operational activities of the organizational structure.
During COVID-19, research on women’s leadership in crises has intensified. As a rule, these studies find a relationship between regions under the political control of a woman and low mortality and morbidity. There are also frequent cases of success in the business sphere when a woman manager in a crisis took the maximum benefit from solving the problem and was also able to take the company to a new level. However, in the academic field, women leaders have been little studied. The specifics of the educational sector lie in the motives, vision, and mission of the leader, who must focus on important scientific, pedagogical aspects of the activity. The leadership qualities shown by women in this light will be of much greater importance and an example for other employees of the academic industry. During the spread of COVID-19, administrative work in this area became more complicated, but certain managerial decisions by women, often with greater attention to soft skills, turned out to be the most correct and effective in such a difficult situation.